With the rising costs of electrical energy, it has been the desire and aspiration of those connected with the air conditioning industry to reduce the cost of cooling by making the air conditioning units more efficient. One means of increasing the efficiency is to provide better cooling means for the hot refrigerant gas in the condenser. Most condensers are air cooled and thus depend on forced ambient air for the necessary cooling air. When the ambient air temperature rises, the efficiency of the air conditioner falls and when the air conditioner is needed most, it is least efficient. One method which has been tried is to spray water onto the condenser coils in order that the water, which usually is below the ambient air temperature, may cool the coils by taking in the heat and with some evaporation, taking the caloric value of the heat of vaporization of water from the heated refrigerant.
This would work perfectly well if the source of the water is 100% distilled water. However, most available waters are waters which have particulates either dissolved or suspended therein which upon evaporation, leave behind scale. This scale has an insulating effect and after a short while the value of water cooling the condenser is lost. In addition, the build up of scale upon the condenser coils and between the condenser fins soon renders the condenser non-functional and the air conditioning unit non-usable.
Additionally, in air conditioning units which have been designed to be air cooled, the increased efficiency of the condenser, by cooling as above mentioned, results in lower refrigerant gas pressures throughout the system and imparts the danger of the refrigerant turning to liquid, either in the evaporator after it has been evaporated or in the lines connecting the evaporator with the compressor. Since the compressor is not designed to receive a liquid, but a gas, the attempted compression of the liquid soon results in a damaged compressor.
To this end, the applicants have devised an inventive means and method for adaptation to air cooled condensers where water cooling may be accomplished without the normally attendant scale deposition and the cooling water is cycled in the form of a water spray, taking into account the internal conditions of the air conditioning unit in order that the compressor will not receive the refrigerant in the harmful liquid state.